![[HAVE ANOTHER DORITO DARTH?]](shoales970306.gif)
it was kind of fun standing in line for "Star Wars" again, just like the old days, when I was young and the very idea of standing around on concrete for an hour or two seemed the height of glamour. And the movie itself was as stilted and silly as I remembered it. It had been daringly retro 20 years ago, in a period of grim '70s offerings like "The Exorcist," "The Godfather," "All the President's Men" and "Marathon Man." (Even after all these years, I still look back fondly on "Marathon Man" as the ugliest and most pointless movie I've ever seen.) In comparison, "Star Wars" was as sweet and clunky as a Flash Gordon serial, only shorter. "The Empire Strikes Back," which I thought was a classic the first time I saw it, was a bit of a yawner this time around. Yoda's Zen-Grover schtick, the witless flirtation between Han and Leia, Darth Vader's relentless quest to capture Luke Skywalker -- I dozed fitfully through all of it. Wasn't much of a line, though. I'll be skipping "Return of the Jedi." I hated it the first time I saw it. With the millions at their disposal, couldn't the Lucas team have dreamed up another weapon of destruction besides the Death Star? Again? And those creepy little tree-dwelling teddy bear things? Ugh. Then there was the ending, in which Darth Vader turns into nice Mr. Skywalker, looking very much like Uncle Fester; Han gets Leia, Luke gets the Force, the robots get a lube job, Chewy gets a trim, Lando gets something or other, and all the dead Jedi are seen crammed together in Valhalla smiling down wisely on their bland charges. It was a finale so happy it seemed insane. And perhaps the time has come to ask some basic questions about this "trilogy." Why didn't Obi Wan (or Luke's aunt and uncle for that matter) just come out and tell Luke that Darth Vader was his father? Was it really necessary for him to go get his hand chopped off in order to get this information? Oh, I suppose they did tell him in a way. They told him that Darth Vader had killed his father, which I suppose one could take to mean that he killed the Skywalker within, but that's awfully coy, isn't it? It's like putting Dad in the Betty Ford Center and telling the kids that he's suffering from "exhaustion." And what happened to Luke and Leia's mother anyway? She and Darth get divorced, or what? Is she living a bitter lonely life in a double-wide outside of Reno, drinking lukewarm $5 Chablis straight from the bottle? Somebody could at least have told Luke and Leia that they were brother and sister. They were verging on a romance for a while, for crying out loud. I'll bet there were taboos on incest even a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Why were they separated in the first place? Because they were the last hope of the rebel cause? Shouldn't somebody have dropped a hint? Did Darth know his children were alive? If not, why not? If he did, wouldn't he have been curious as to their whereabouts? Why did he wait a couple decades before he started looking for them? When he first captured Leia (and tortured her! his own daughter!), why didn't he get those same inklings of "the Force is strong in this one" that he did with Luke? And why did this apostate Jedi change his name to Darth Vader? IS Darth Vader his name, or some kind of dark-side-of-the-Force title/job description, analogous to Grand Imperial Wizard or Postmaster General? Using Force Lite gave Jedis the ability to move heavy objects with their minds, leap through the air like kung fu masters and intuit their way out of any sticky situation. What more do you need? What's the seductive power of the dark side of the Force? All it really seemed to do was make the villains all scarred-up, asthmatic and wrinkly. Look at the emperor. He didn't have an entourage of lackies, bodyguards and fabulous babes. He didn't even have a palace, as near as I could tell. The only pleasure he got out of life was blowing up planets with Death Stars. He looked and acted like a smug monk. Jabba the Hut had more trappings of power than the emperor did. And another thing. I know there's an enormous "backstory" to the whole "Star Wars" mythos, including the adventures of Boba Fett, Dash Rendar and other obscure cult figures. There's even an official bible, to which all "Star Wars" efforts -- books, comic books, games and marketing -- must defer. How do the massive advertising campaigns surrounding this re-release tie in to that fictitious history? What is the relationship between robots and tacos? What does the Empire have against pizza? Why does Darth Vader care whether you drink Pepsi or not? Just the other day, I was walking by my local neighborhood deli. It had two enormous posters in its window, for "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back." I stopped for a second to stare at Luke, looking nervous but determined, holding up his light saber. You know what? It didn't make me want to have a sandwich at all. So, wherever else it might occur, the Force is definitely not with hoagies. Let me put it another way. I've just about had enough of "Star Wars" now, thank you.
|
LAST 5 COLUMNS: 2/06/97 |
1/20/97 |
1/06/97 |
12/23/96 |
12/09/96 |
Ill Humor archive
NEW BOOKMARK: http://www.salon1999.com/columnists/shoales.html
